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Gobi Desert

Gobi Desert news

Gobi Desert Weather

The Gobi (Chinese: 戈壁(沙漠) Gēbì (Shāmò); Mongolian: Говь, Govi or Gov', meaning, gravel-covered plain) is a large desert region in China and southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altay Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Tibetan Plateau to the southwest, and by the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is made up of several distinct ecological and geographic regions, based on variations in climate and topography. This desert is both Asia's largest and the fourth largest in the world.

The Gobi is most notable in history as part of the great Mongol Empire, and as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road.

The Gobi is a rain shadow desert formed by the Himalaya range blocking rain-carrying clouds from reaching the Gobi.

Geography

The Gobi measures over 1500 kilometers from southwest to northeast and 800 km from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the line joining the Baghrash Kol and the Lop Nor (87°-89° east). It occupies an arc of land 1,295,000 square kilometers (500,000 mi²)[1] in area, making it fourth largest in the world and Asia's largest. Much of the Gobi is not sandy but is covered with bare rock.

The Gobi has several alternative Chinese names, including 沙漠 (shāmò, actually a generic term for deserts in general) and 旱海 (hànhǎi, dry sea). In its broadest definition, the Gobi includes the long stretch of desert and semidesert country extending from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° east, to the Greater Khingan Mountains, 116°-118° east, on the border of Manchuria; and from the foothills of the Altay, Sayan, and Yablonoi mountain ranges on the north to the Kunlun Shan, Altun Shan, and Qilian shan ranges, which form the northern edges of the Tibetan Plateau, on the south.

A relatively large area on the east side of the Greater Khingan range, between the upper waters of the Songhua (Sungari) and the upper waters of the Liao-ho, is also reckoned to belong to the Gobi by conventional usage. On the other hand, geographers and ecologists prefer to regard the western area of the Gobi region (as defined above), the basin of the Tarim in Xinjiang and the desert basin of Lop Nor and Hami (Kumul) as forming a separate and independent desert, called the Taklamakan Desert.

The Nemegt Basin in the northwestern part of the Gobi Desert (in Mongolia) is famous for its dinosaur fossil treasures.

Climate

The Gobi desert is a cold desert, and it is not uncommon to see frost and occasionally snow on its dunes. Besides being quite far north, it is also roughly 900 meters (2,953 ft) above sea level, which further contributes to its low temperatures. An average of approximately 194 millimeters (7.6 in) of rain falls per year in the Gobi. Additional moisture reaches parts of the Gobi in winter as snow is blown by the wind from the Siberian Steppes. These winds cause the Gobi to reach extremes of temperature like no other, ranging from –40°C in Winter to +50°C in Summer. [2]

Climate (as of 1911)

The climate of the Gobi is one of great extremes, combined with rapid changes of temperature, not only through the year but even within 24 hours (by as much as 32 °C or 58 °F).

Even in southern Mongolia the thermometer goes down as low as -32.8 °C (-27 °F), and in Ala-shan it rises as high as 37 °C (98.6 °F) in July.

Average winter minimals are a frigid -40 °C (-40 °F) while summertime temperatures are warm to hot, highs range up to 50 °C (112 °F). Most of the precipitation falls during the summer.

Although the southeast monsoons reach the southeast parts of the Gobi, the area throughout this region is generally characterized by extreme dryness, especially during the winter. Hence, the icy sandstorms and snowstorms of spring and early summer plus early January (winter)

Conservation, ecology, economy

The Gobi Desert is the source of many important fossil finds, including the first dinosaur eggs.

These deserts and the surrounding regions sustain many animals, including black-tailed gazelles, marbled polecats, and sandplovers, and are occasionally visited by snow leopards, brown bears, and wolves. The desert features a number of drought-adapted shrubs such as gray sparrow's saltwort, gray sagebrush, and low grasses such as needle grass and bridlegrass.

The area is vulnerable to trampling by livestock and off-road vehicles (human impacts are greater in the eastern Gobi Desert, where rainfall is heavier and may sustain livestock). In Mongolia, grasslands have been degraded by goats, raised by nomadic herders as source of cashmere wool. Economic trends of livestock privatization and the collapse of the urban economy have caused people to return to rural lifestyles, a movement contrary to urbanization.

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